


he once had a brother he lost to the sea

by littleghost



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 12:23:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10189826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleghost/pseuds/littleghost
Summary: There were drawings of sea dragons in the oceans, here be dragons, unexplored areas, no man’s land, no one has survived.





	

When you were younger you were scared of the ocean. You were afraid of the monsters in the sea, in the dark, in your closet, under your bed. You are afraid of monsters.

You join the army. It’s better than staying at home, with your mother and your five siblings and your father ghost in every creak of the house. (“I’ll fix that,” he vowed, again and again and again.) The army doesn’t want your money, only wants your loyalty, your obedience, your will. You give it, willingly and quietly. You are tired of fighting monsters.

You are smart. You know machines, you know to to fix them and break them, build and dismantle. Your instructor looks at you with proud eyes, but your officer looks at you with distaste when you cannot operate what you build.

“That’s what I have Lance for,” you protest. Lance will pilot and you will make sure the plane doesn’t get damaged, and you’ll be unstoppable.

Until you get to space.

(There are no monsters in space.)

 

The Lions are interesting. You don’t dare go poking around their mechanics, afraid of millennium-old technology and magic. You’re afraid you would hurt them, too.

Allura reminds you of your older sister. She left home long ago, but was older than her years. She remembered Dad more than you did. You remembered what those memories did. Allura looks like your sister did, filled with memories that carve out insides, that lay hearts on the ground and say, “This is flesh. This is breakable. It will break.”

Hearts are easily broken. Yours is, Lance’s is, Shiro’s is. Keith has something fiery inside of him, and Pidge looks determined. Pidge hasn’t given up hope.

You don’t know how Lance broke his, or who broke it. You know he came to the garrison without a smile. You know he didn’t talk for a week. You know he has insecurities and tries to hide them, you know he’s afraid of failure, you know he isn’t afraid of monsters.

He once showed you an old map. There were drawings of sea dragons in the oceans, _here be dragons_ , unexplored areas, no man’s land, no one has survived. He ignored the dragons and drew lines across the ocean. “I want to go here and here,” he said, running a thin line through the dragon’s head, slicing its neck.

(You thought of Hercules and the Hydra, of cutting one head and it grew back. Neither of you like fire.)

You nod. You don’t say you would follow him wherever. There are times and places, and he isn’t ready to hear it, and you aren’t ready to say it.

 

Space is filled with monsters and you hate it. You hate how Allura looks smaller and smaller as the threats get bigger. You hate how Lance is fraying at the seams, his careful defenses burning as Keith sets fire to bridge after bridge. You hate how Shiro seems to have forgotten he is a leader.

It’s easier to make things, deconstruct them, and build them again but better. You remodel one of Lance’s guns, calibrating the sights. He smiles when you give it to him. Keith looks annoyed.

Fire and Hydras.

“Keith is too hot-headed,” Lance said once. Keith runs head-first into a fight with the second biggest monster in the universe.

You are thrown to the ends of the universe. With Lance.

It’s easy to consider giving up. You can go back to Earth. Lance has yet to follow those thin lines he traced one night. It’s harder once you remember that Lance won’t give up.

(Once, he asked you what his greatest strength was. You shrugged. He speculated it was his accuracy. You thought it was how he put his everything in.)

Lance saves an underwater world. Voltron gets formed again. You forget how it feels to be normal.

Keith turns out to be Galra. You make the necessary jokes. You go and find Allura later. Keith is Galra and the Galra killed her family, her people. She is not okay.

You go back to Balmera. You feel like you are going to war. You’re tired all the time.

You go to war. You lose Shiro. You find him.

 

The end comes quickly. You are still afraid of the ocean, but only at night. You are always afraid of space, now that it is no longer a familiar sight that held the promise of more. You’re afraid of what else it’s hiding.

Keith is still fiery, Lance’s heart is still broken and you don’t know why. You will never know why.

Lance is afraid of monsters. He’s afraid of what’s in his closet, under his bed, hiding in the dark corners of his room. You make him a light that illuminates the corners. He still bunks in your room.

It’s quiet, but the Galra are still out there. The Black Lion and Shiro still sense Zarkon. There have been more threats to more planets. The war is still not over, but you are very tired.

The type of tired your mother had, with five kids and a missing husband, lost loves and lost chances. She kept missing great things. Your good things barely come by.

Allura looks less like your sister. She seems happier. She and Shiro seem happier. Their broken hearts are mending.

Pidge is still following trails.

Lance is still drawing thin lines across dragon’s heads, but they keep coming back.

Keith is still burning.

 

It’s not expected. It’s another fight, the season finale, when the heroes finally fight the big bad. Your Saturday cartoons always had the big fight.

You form Voltron. You fight the Galra. You break apart, come back together. There’s a slash in the Blue Lion’s flank. Voltron breaks.

It will be easy to remember what happens. You see it in prime time. Lance has to eject, fix his Lion. Lotor fires one shot.

He doesn’t miss.

If this was your Saturday cartoon, everything would slow down and Lance would just barely dodge. But this is real, and Lance gets hit, and what’s left of your heart breaks.

(“This is your heart,” someone says. They step on it. You don’t feel a thing. They set fire to it and tear it into shreds and you still don’t react. You look at your dad, who’s holding your sister’s heart in his hands. He takes it with him.)

You remember what those memories did to your sister. You don’t know what these memories will do to you.

Keith yells. He is still burning, but now he is a supernova.

He fights the Galra, fights what is inside him. Nothing good ever comes of that, you know from experience.

You win the war. Zarkon is dead, Lotor is dead, Haggar is learning.

Lance is dead.

Alteans have weird funeral customs. You think of Lance, of his family he never spoke about, of the ocean that he did. You take his body back to Earth.

“Lance is gonna pilot,” you told your instructor once. Lance grinned at you, quick and easy.

You still don’t know how to pilot.

 

You are afraid of the ocean. There’s too much you don’t know. You are afraid of space. There is too much you do know.

You give the ocean Lance. It takes him. The ocean is quiet that day. It won’t stay that way, with Lance there.

You ignore Keith, and Pidge, and Shiro when they call after you. Allura lets you go. Coran stays in the castle. She is too much like your sister, but you know she will get better.

You go back home. Your mother is still tired, her shoulders sag like the sky rests upon them. You take some of the weight and keep going, keep moving, keep breathing.

You are still scared of monsters.

**Author's Note:**

> title from "war of the foxes" by richard siken. sorry lance, i love you but it had to happen.
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](https://flannelallura.tumblr.com)


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